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October 03, 2007

A Rant

Church and Belief. Two different things. Every Sunday I am home I take my 91 year old mother to church. For several days before, she asks if I am ‘still going? At the same time telling me she realizes I do not really want to go. She’s right. I don’t.

In my mother’s generation, church was like drinking water, part of the routine of life, her spiritual hydration. She grew up with long prayers before and after every meal, saying the rosary every day, going to vespers (whatever that really means) and church, every Sunday. I would bet the farm she did not miss going any Sunday, until she moved in with me (!) and now we miss only if I am traveling. But we go through the same questions each and every week “are you still going” and the answer is yes, both of us knowing I would rather skip it. I think I suffer from too much church and too little spirituality. She would say “it’s up to you to make it worthwhile”. .Maybe. Or maybe I’m worn out on the idea.

We go. We sit in the front row for several reasons. One is because my mother is 91 and cannot walk long distances. We use a wheelchair and transfer to the pew. Another is because at 91, while she believes she can hear well, she cannot hear a damn thing really. Last, sitting in the front row lines her up to receive communion without a lot of unnecessary walking.

There is a little something in me that is ok with the church idea. I grew up Catholic and I know I am supposed to find something comforting about going to church. I have tried. It isn’t that I don’t pray. I do, often at strange times and in strange places. I find myself praying a lot surprisingly, much of the time it is a simple prayer about life, the safety and happiness of my daughters, my husband and my family or bigger matters, war, peace, genetic disease, poverty, hunger and very often it is about Duchenne, that everything we do and everything we support will move the field forward; about the success of upcoming clinical trials, about the critical need to develop treatments that will help every boy (girls too), to stop progression, to understand and appreciate more about muscle and the pathology of degeneration, to identify new strategies, to understand more about the complexities of the disease, to improve the quality of life, to assure access to therapies, and one day be able to diagnose a newborn and deliver a cure And most of the time, I whisper to Chris and Pat, hoping they are somewhere close, close enough to hear and help. As I travel, I see men and women in uniform, I pray for our troops to come home, for their safety and then my prayers come back to our DMD families across the globe, that one day, we will find every one of them with the systems we are developing (global registry, clinical trial networks, policies) and intervene with our knowledge about care, our investment in research and deliver promising therapies) and buy time, a lifetime.. And for strength…of course for strength... But not in church.

I had some impression that I should come away with something after participating in a church service and I do – the feeling that I have wasted the last 40 minutes. The services - impersonal, with meaningless petitions, rambling sermons and a mumbling priest… nothing.

Some time ago, the pastor said he wanted to build community. How I wondered? How is it that you build community when there is no real interaction? How is it that you build community when your audience is not engaged, cannot hear what is being said, looking at their watches, answering email (I’m guilty) or staring at the floor. The conversation is one way. The priest may be talking, but who is really listening?

Last week was the last straw. We had the mumbling priest. Even though I have probably heard those prayers at least a zillion times, the priest was in such a hurry, his words were tripping over each other. Unintelligible. I honestly tried to listen to the sermon but could not make out a single word. Not one. I walked out angry.

I had a notion to call the pastor, suggest that he ask different parishioners to make up the petitions - figure out what is important to the individuals here, at this church. If prayers are actually answered, what would make their life better? Petitions that mean something not just some ridiculous, unattainable Mary Poppins appeal. Something meaningful that makes sense, that we might work together to achieve, a prayer we might see answered. It might just convince us that indeed there is a God and He (She) does answer prayers.

And what about a parishioner giving the sermon? If you want to build the community, it might be worth knowing who lives in the community and what is meaningful to them. Ask the individual to talk about who they are, what makes a difference in their life and why they pray. It just might be a surprise. It does not have to be a 20 minute dissertation, rather a honest, heartfelt moment to express sorrow, gratitude about something in his/her life or tell us what happened in their life to made an impression. A life lesson perhaps... Making church human might improve all us.

This Sunday I will be home. “Still going?” It is the one gift I have to give to her.

Posted by ppmd at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)